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The Labour District Diaries: Part 4

Shortly before we moved away from Toronto, I received a good piece of advice from a store owner: rent a space that doesn’t need much work.

Once you sign the lease, you’re responsible for everything that happens inside that space, so if it needs a whole shitload of renovating, it’s coming out of your wallet. And your wallet’s already been ransacked by insurance, hydro, and various set up fees, so you don’t want to be throwing down even more dollar bills for a drywaller and electrician.

With that piece of advice in mind, we chose a space that didn’t require too much work. Mostly just patching up scrapes and nail holes, and a paint job. Our place does, however, have carpet. Yep, carpet in a retail space in Canada. And we were told that it’d probably cost like $1400 to replace the carpet with even the cheapest tile. So we’re living with carpet for now.

Shortly after we received our keys, we got to work. Patching up the scrapes, waiting for them to dry, and patching a second layer where needed.

The next day, we started painting.

And painting.

And painting some more.

It’s been awhile since I painted, and I’d forgotten how tedious it can be. Everything needs at least two layers, and we haven’t even gotten started on the accent colour!

Here’s how it looks right now:

Purty.

And if you’ll notice, there’s a row of mirrors that run along the upper wall on the left side. They also run along the back wall. And while we’re okay with the two big mirrors that are set up, the mirrors that run along the tops of all the walls aren’t really necessary. We’re working on a plan to fix them up and make them less obvious. Or take them down. Whatev.